


the stars are just another destination

by daddyanchen (sichenqie)



Category: NINE PERCENT (Band), 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Slow Burn, Some mature themes, Space pilots, Violence, ender game vibes tbh, it also applies to like... lmao deaths and stuff so don't be too alarmed, so basically like just..., the mature themes apply to zzt and others btw, the slowest burn you'll ever experience
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-05-30 12:40:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15096920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sichenqie/pseuds/daddyanchen
Summary: in 4,000 years, the human race has come far in terms of space travel. the termliving amongst the starshave become less of an idiom with the development of several intergalactic colonies throughout the cosmos. skies bleed purples and blues and pinks, and humans have learned to develop new adaptations toward surviving on planets with gaseous atmospheres and severe weather conditions. the military prowess of the entire earth conglomerate has decided to pool all efforts into creating a proper galactic battle academy to train children not just in primary educational values, but also battle-ready skills needed for interspace travel and battle.orbiting in the sagittarius arm, the sagittarius military space academy hosts a myriad of students, trained to be the next generation of interspace pilots and militant leaders for the cosmos, defenders of the milky way bar and its neighboring galaxies. they're bright-faced and brilliant minded, lives knowing nothing but playful banter and textbooks among a world that uses sun flares as morning wakeup calls. these boys swallow whole stars for breakfast and shed stardust in the evening.reach for the stars, they've always said.we already have, these boys reply.





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> lowkey this is gonna take me 298374 years to finish; hopefully you all will stick around with me!!
> 
> lowkey inspo for this work
>
>> 1\. [the ocean at the end of the universe by mindheist](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2483330)  
> 2\. ender's game  
> 3\. valerian and laureline

“did you hear?” chengcheng says, sliding into the chair next to xukun, an open book in one hand and a pear in the other. “there’s a transfer coming in today.”

“oh yeah, i heard,” justin says, across the table and swiveling around in his chair.

“that’s so stupid. it’s exam week,” xukun says, jotting down star coordinates from his study guide. “if he comes in now, he has to take the exams. is he even prepared?”

“apparently, that’s what they’re making him do. something about his old school shutting down, so they transferred him here because he’s in, like… the 96th percentile.”

“shit… he must be smart. where’s he from?” xukun asks, twirling his pen around his finger, sitting back in his chair, taking a break from studying.

“neptune, i think,” chengcheng says, taking a bite of his pear.

“whoa, i’m from neptune!” yanjun chimes in from across the room, but no one really pays him attention, all opting to stay studying.

chengcheng rolls his eyes, and justin stands up from his chair. 

“i’m gonna go play the flight simulators, anyone wanna verse me?” justin says.

“no, you don’t even play that game right,” chengcheng says. 

“it’s not my fault that they gave all the ships unlimited bullets. i’m just using what the game gave me.” 

“hey, how many times have you failed the practical flight exam again?” xukun asks, giving justin a pointed look, knowing damn well that justin’s only a class 7 because he hasn’t been able to pass his final.

“...fuck you. i can’t believe you brought that up. you know i’m sore about that,” justin yells, unbelievably loud as he walks out of the study room. “three, by the way,” he adds. “don’t keep track!” 

chengcheng chuckles and high fives xukun before they go back to studying.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so these chapters are going to vary in length a lot; it all depends on how much information i feel like giving in the stories, but hopefully they'll all come together cohesively.
> 
> the ending of this feels v rushed sorry rip

xukun doesn’t think his friends give enough credit to the sagittarius arm, the way it bleeds purples and blues and whites throughout the sky, clustered by several small stars. back on saturn, xukun only remembers yellow skies and gaseous clouds, light gravity and slow running. here, he has to learn to be quick, to challenge himself, to build muscle where there was none previously needed to live on the jewel of the milky way galaxy. 

on his way to his bunker, xukun bumps into someone he’s never seen before. the sagittarius military aerospace academy has a large population of over 2,500 students, but xukun is sure that he has never seen this boy even once before. his hair shines black and sleek, the way it does when someone bathes under the fogged sunlight of uranus. 

“excuse me,” the boy says; his uniform is too crisp, too neat. there are four medals on his lapel, and he carries three notebooks. “i’m looking for the exam room. they told me to go down corridor g, room 27?” 

“this is _bunker_ g,” xukun says. “the classroom corridors are on the other side of the station.” 

the boy’s face scrunches up, brows furrowed, eyes slits as he groans and slumps over himself. “i literally just came from there. damn!” he complains. 

“give me a sec, i’ll walk with you,” xukun says as he hurriedly opens the keypad for his bunker, types in the 9-digit code before the doors pull open. he throws his books onto the fifth bunk on the right side of the room before coming back out, the bunker doors closing automatically. 

“thanks,” the boy mutters. 

“what’s your name?” xukun asks as he walks with the boy down the hall, taking a right. 

“chen linong. i’m new,” the boy says. 

“you’re the new transfer from neptune?”

“yeah! my school was about 12 au from here.” 

“my friend says you guys ran out of fundings, but that you’re smart, and that’s why you’re here.” 

linong purses his lips and shrugs, insincere. “i guess that’s a theory.” 

xukun frowns, dislikes the way that linong doesn’t give him a straight answer. “what’s your track?” xukun asks, takes a left down the next corridor. 

part of xukun wonders if linong’s school had functioned in tracks. here, there are four main tracks to choose from: flight, navigation, informational technology, and spacecraft mechanics. subtracks are created from these four branches and students are free to choose their own paths, such as aerospace agriculture or soundwave technology. xukun sighs in relief when linong shows an understanding of the tracks. 

“flight,” he says. “i’m specializing in warship piloting.” he points to one of his badges. “i was in the top 3 space aviators.”

“shit, that’s cool.” xukun is genuinely impressed, reckons linong has born talent, wonders if they’ll get to partner up one day, wonders if linong would choose him as a navigator or if he has other friends he’d like to navigate with. 

“what’s yours?” linong asks as they take another left. 

“navigation. my subtrack is informational technology. it’s kinda useful to know info tech if you’re a navigation.” 

“nice. definitely useful.” 

“what’s your class?” 

“for navigation, class 3. for informational tech, class 5. you?”

“warship piloting, class 2. general flight, class 3.”

xukun finally stops outside of the exam room, waves a hand toward it for linong. “this is it. you have an exam to take?”

“yeah… bad timing, right? i have physics, chemistry, aerospace mechanics, a flight practical, and binary.” 

“shit, that’s literally a whole class year. good luck.” 

“yeah, i’m just pretending like this is my entrance exam, you know?”

“hey, maybe we can study for physics together later. drop by bunker g anytime.”

“sounds great. thanks.” linong smiles at him, and xukun thinks that the sun is suddenly not the brightest star in the solar system.

* * *

“guys, this is linong, the new transfer from neptune,” xukun says when he walks into the study room. 

yanjun is the first to jump up and greet him, immediately shaking hands and smiling bright, rambles about missing home and about how his hair isn’t the right color because he actually grew up on jupiter, but he swears he’s from neptune. 

“he’s smart,” xukun whispers to zhengting as he sits by him, watches how linong talks so animatedly with yanjun. 

“my head hurts so much,” zhengting mutters, running his fingers through his hair, shoving at his computer. “i’ve been trying to get the codes right for this program, and the results aren’t coming up.”

chengcheng grabs zhengting’s computer, pushes his glasses up his nose, and clicks away on the keyboard for a moment before he hands it back to zhengting. “you forgot a decimal,” chengcheng mutters as he takes a bite of his apple. 

zhengting complains about chengcheng being a smartass as linong and yanjun take a seat next to them. 

“so,” xukun starts, “physics?”

they spend the next two hours talking on and off about their upcoming exams and actually studying. most of the time, they’re curious about linong and how he got into their school. 

“it’s not like people just end up here, even if they’re smart like you,” zhangjing says. 

linong shrugs. “i don’t really know the details of what’s going on, to be honest. i was told that i was being transferred somewhere temporarily, and based on my grades, they gave me a scholarship to come here.” 

“what happened to your school?” justin asks. 

“lost fundings,” chengcheng says.

“yeah, but it’s not like it was that small of a school, and if it’s a branch off of the intergalactic aerospace academy, they’d get government funding and have provisions,” yanjun says.

“lack of resources?” xukun chimes in. “it was located pretty far from the milky way bar. the iaa might not have had enough ships to send out that far that many times a year.” 

linong wrings the pencil in his hands together before he leans forward, lowers his voice. “if i tell you guys what actually happened, can you keep it a secret?” 

the group murmurs a yes, silent and solemn. 

“we were attacked,” linong breathes. “i mean… i think we were attacked. when the school was dismissed, they told us it was a pressure implosion in the left wing, but i know i smelled explosives, and it’s not like our school was structurally unsound. it can’t be. we’re not a new school, so… i think we were attacked.” 

there’s silence.

“who do you think it was?” justin mutters.

“who would want to attack a school?” yanjun leans back in his chair.

“terrorists. people who hate school. the far 3kpc arm parliament,” zhengting purses his lips. 

“those are some prime candidates,” chengcheng snorts, finishing off his apple and tossing the core into a trashcan. 

“right, well, we were supposed to be studying, but we’re not doing that anymore, i guess. i’m going to go study in my bunker,” zhengting mutters, grabbing his books and standing up. 

everyone waves bye to him, takes note of his moody attitude, but no one bothers to follow him.

“probably doesn’t want to be bothered,” zhangjing mutters.

“how much you wanna bet he’s not going to study,” justin snickers. “he’s probably going to see xingjie. they haven’t had time to hang out or do whatever it is that boyfriends do in a military space academy.” 

linong doesn’t know who that is, but he keeps quiet and listens to the conversation. 

“i heard xingjie was supposed to be a commander-in-training like zhengting,” chengcheng says, “but he turned it down.” 

“how do you even become a commander-in-training?” linong pipes up, not that he ever had the interest to study as one, but curiously. 

“you need, like… top grades and a recommendation. you have to be invited into the program,” xukun says. “it’s tough work. zhengting complains about it all the time.”

“you basically become a jack of all trades,” yanjun adds. 

“too much work,” linong mutters, huffing as he sits back in his seat, twirling his pen as his mind tries to wrap around the physics they’d just discussed. 

“i tried for commander-in-training once,” yanjun says. “didn’t work, obviously.” 

linong shrugs. “never really thought about becoming commander.” 

“why? you’re smart enough,” xukun says. 

“i’ve always wanted to be a pilot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hang out in my [cc](https://curiouscat.me/daddyanchen) if anything is confusing!

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments always appreciated!! :))
> 
> find me: [twt](https://twitter.com/daddyanchen) / [cc](https://curiouscat.me/daddyanchen)


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